Tankers may ship water to parched cities of future

By Stefano Ambrogi

LONDON (Reuters) - Fleets of supertankers could one day ply the world's oceans laden not with oil but fresh water.

Sounds far-fetched?

In Paris on Friday the world's top climate scientists issued the strongest warning yet that human activity was heating the planet. They forecast temperatures would rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees Celsius this century.

By 2100, water scarcity could impact between 1.1 and 3.2 billion people, says a leaked, related U.N. climate study due to be published in April.

China and Australia, as well as parts of Europe and the United States would face critical water shortages, it says.

Maritime experts say shipping water by tanker is one of the least eccentric ideas raised of late to counter acute shortages.

Dragging icebergs from the Arctic, ships hauling enormous bags of fresh water, and cloud seeding -- in which clouds are sprayed with chemicals to induce rain -- have all been aired by water authorities in the past.

"You can ship any liquid commodity if the money's right," said Bill Box, spokesman for Intertanko, the world's largest association of tanker owners.

Tankers would need to be specially coated for the water trade or built as a dedicated fleet.

In 1996, the World Bank's then water resources manager, John Hayward, said: "One way or another, water will be moved around the world as is oil now."

WATER SHUTTLE

Daniel Zimmer, executive director of the World Water Council in Marseille, said there was a real prospect that fleets of dedicated tankers could shuttle fresh water between countries.

But he saw it only being feasible for essential supplies of fresh drinking water and not for low grade agricultural water where the cost of freight would outweigh the benefits.

"We definitely see it increasing. We expect in the future and even in the short-term, before 2050, more frequent heatwaves and dry periods which could make shipping water economically justifiable," he told Reuters.

He said exporting water by sea was already happening between France and Algeria and Turkey and Israel.